The world outside Lupe Quinones' house in North Fair Oaks looks like a peaceful suburb, one lined with leafy trees and working-class homes.

But to the frail 81-year-old, this unincorporated slice of San Mateo County is rife with hazards. Debris litters streets and alleys. Sidewalks are cracked, and some intersections lack clearly marked crosswalks and curb ramps.

Quinones has tripped hard on walks in the neighborhood twice, earning bruises and cuts.

"I have to look where I'm walking," she said on a recent outing as she sidestepped a jagged chunk of pavement in sensible shoes.

Until now, there have been few ways for Quinones or others to register grievances about their neighborhoods, aside from complaining to friends or calling the county. But Stanford University School of Medicine is working on that.

Over the past few years, researchers there have been experimenting with a new piece of technology designed to make it easier for Peninsula residents to alert local government officials to potential hazards on public sidewalks and streets.

The Stanford Healthy Neighborhood Discovery Tool, a software application for smartphones and tablets, lets users photograph problems and record voice messages explaining them. GPS software then pinpoints the photos and locations on a map on a website accessible to city leaders, policymakers and researchers.

Foster healthy habits

Leading the project is Abby King, a Stanford professor of health research and policy and medicine who has long been interested in the ways developed areas can encourage, or discourage, people to be active. The ability to freely and easily reach destinations on foot isn't just good exercise on its own. It can foster other healthy habits, such as walking to grocery stores, community gardens and farmers' markets for fresh food.

"What we wanted to do is take the next step and empower people to change those environments," King said. "Not just report on the issues, but actually see how we could collaboratively work with residents to help them change their environment in simple but hopefully powerful ways."

King said she and her team at Stanford's Prevention Research Center have been especially interested in introducing the app, which is available in both English and Spanish, to older adults because they often run into problems that have gone unnoticed by others. Many older adults also appreciate the opportunity to learn about technology.

"For younger adults, a slope or incline that may be in a neighborhood between them and a store may not be an issue. They may not even think about it," King said. "For older adults, it could be a barrier. A lot of older adults have declining physical functions and find it that much harder to negotiate the environment."

Outside research underscores the importance of the relationship between health and the built environment. A study by researchers from UC Berkeley and other institutions showed that elderly adults who live in residential areas walk less than the recommended 150 minutes per week, compared with those who live in areas with a combination of residential and commercial uses, indicating that people are more likely to walk if destinations are easily reachable.

Another UC Berkeley study in this month's issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine used portable devices to monitor the physical activity of children in Chino (San Bernardino County). Those in walkable neighborhoods got 46 percent more exercise than those in the more sprawling communities.

Stanford experiment

About two years ago, the Stanford researchers lent Samsung tablets to nearly 30 elderly adults, mostly in senior housing in East Palo Alto. The participants walked around their neighborhood, pointed their devices at crosswalks and parks, and created more than 400 photographs and audio clips.

When King's team shared the results with East Palo Alto officials, the city took notice. One of the biggest changes made in response was to completely redesign the intersection next tothe East Palo Alto Senior Center, at University Avenue and Bell Street, in an attempt to make it safer and easier to traverse.

The city installed curb extensions to shorten the distance and time it takes to cross the street, countdown timers to let pedestrians know how much time they had to cross, devices to detect approaching bicyclists at intersections, new traffic signals to include protected left turns, and other visibility improvements. The changes cost about $300,000.

"Its major impact for us was to elevate our level of awareness of some of the concerns facing seniors," Brent Butler, the city's planning manager, said of the Stanford project.

In cities with tight budgets, not every rough patch of sidewalk can be smoothed over, King recognizes. But she counts every small change a victory nonetheless.

More recently, this summer, about 20 elderly adults and adolescents in North Fair Oaks, which is adjacent to Redwood City, got to play with the app.

Researchers were surprised to see that the young teenagers and the senior citizens worried about many of the same issues, such as overwhelmingly busy traffic corridors. At a recent community meeting, the participants presented their top concerns to local politicians and civic workers, who thanked them for their efforts.

Trash, uneven walks

Edson Luciano, 12, mostly used the tablet to take pictures of overflowing trash cans, uneven sidewalks and graffiti. The experience made him more cognizant of the blight around him.

"You go to rich people's areas, you see there's not trash anywhere, everything's really clean," said the seventh-grader. "It makes you feel bad."

Yet the project also gave him hope that conditions could improve.

"A lot of people ... want to change, but they don't do anything about it," he said.

At the meeting was Diana Shu, a road operations manager for San Mateo County's Department of Public Works, who routinely handles complaints about debris and burned-out lights. It's not clear yet what, if any, concrete action will be taken in North Fair Oaks as a result of the Stanford project, but Shu said she appreciates what it is trying to accomplish.

"Some of these neighborhoods, people complain but don't tell anyone what their complaint is, so it just festers there," she said. "But I would rather people show interest in their neighborhood and say they want improvements."